


Full Circle

by sakurazawa



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, Marauders Friendship, Marauders' Era, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-06
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-04-13 05:14:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4509177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakurazawa/pseuds/sakurazawa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In September, 1971, the fate of the Wizarding World shifted course with the friendship of four young men...</p>
<p>Voldemort's campaign of fear is on the rise. Political dissenters are going missing, Muggles are tortured and killed for sport, and fighting back is the surest way to come home to a Dark Mark. </p>
<p>Remus Lupin has never been so happy. Despite the uncertain world, he is on his way to Hogwarts, where everything he'd once thought impossible now seems within reach--friends. For the first time in his life. James Potter is determined to be just like his brilliant father, Sirius Black is grateful to be away from his, and Peter Pettegrew just hopes he can remember the password.</p>
<p>But there are whispers of a resistance within the very walls of Hogwarts School, whispers of an Order determined to undermine the Dark Lord's pureblood mania. But someone is passing information out of the school, and it might be a quartet of precocious students</p>
            </blockquote>





	Full Circle

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to write an epic-length Marauders fic forever. What better time to start than now? I hope you like it. :)

****   


 

It was a mark of how poorly Remus Lupin’s transformation had gone that his mother let him draw gobstones circles on the parlor floor. It was the only room she had fully unpacked, so it was there she’d carried him that morning, the sofa still a warm nest of blankets that smelled like sweat and lavender. She must have slept there or, more likely, lain awake there, listening to his screams turn to howls and back again.

Four potions and six hours of exhausted slumber had filed away the sharp edges of pain, but the full-body ache kept him from standing to retrieve a book or hunt through the cupboard for something to eat. Instead, he’d slid gingerly to the floor and pulled his bag of gobstones from the basket by the hearth.

Father had taken the day off work, staying home to repair the damage his son had done to the root cellar, and though Remus’s stomach still twisted with guilt, the sound of Lyall Lupin’s murmured spells made a comforting vibration beneath the floorboards.

Remus had poured the fourteen little spheres into his hands and begun separating them into their respective colors when Hope, alerted by his soft sounds, had peered in from one of the bedrooms. Her light brown hair was swept up off her neck, but bits of it clung to her face, and she looked ever so slightly winded.

She was unpacking again. As usual, Remus’s father had offered to do it with magic, but Hope never agreed, no matter how many times they moved. Remus suspected she liked unpacking. Putting things just so seemed to comfort her. At the very least, it was something to do, since she couldn’t teach him maths or Welsh vocabulary while he slept off a transformation.

“Awake, my love?” she’d asked, stepping into the parlor and around the sofa to squat beside her son.

He’d smiled at her, since the answer was obvious. His throat felt pitted as the bottom of a cauldron and it hurt to swallow or breathe too deeply. She’d swept his hair from his eyes and pressed her cool palm to his forehead, as though he’d been taken with fever, not lycanthropy. Still, the gesture was familiar and comforting. Remus sniffed, then held up the colored chalk and pointed at the bare bit of floor between the sofa and the hearth.

“Can I draw it here,” he asked, voice a rasp, “if I promise to clean it up?”

Hope’s brow had furrowed, and he saw the sad twitch of her mouth before it deepened into a smile. “Man a man y mwnci,” she’d said in Welsh, and combed through his hair before dropping a kiss on his head. “But only if you clean it up!”

So he’d sprawled on his stomach and inscribed the circles, setting up a game for one.

A sound like a loud bullfrog started outside and Remus looked up, startled. It was the beginning of March--almost his birthday. There were never frogs out of hibernation around his birthday...

A great clatter sounded on the stairs to the root cellar, and a moment later, Lyall Lupin burst through the door, wand drawn, and headed for the front door. Remus pushed himself to his knees, his fingers curling tighter around a gobstone.

“Lyall, what-” his mother leaned out of the kitchen holding a teaspoon, and his father staved her off with an outstretched hand.

“That’s my perimeter wards. No one should have-”

“Oh, Lyall, really. There aren’t any neighbors for ten kilometers. How could they have heard-”

“Good...Hope. Hope, it’s him.”

Remus saw his mother stiffen, her knuckles turning white around the teaspoon handle. “Him? Him who?”

But Lyall’s wand was lowering, and his demeanor had shifted from protective to frantic as he looked around at the still-bare walls, the battered back of the root-cellar door, and, finally, his ten-year-old son, sitting cross-legged by the hearth with his pajama cuffs trailing over small, bruised fingers.

Lyall’s mouth firmed. “We’ve got to distract him, Hope. He’ll--if anyone would figure it out from a mere glance, it’s Dumbledore.”  
Remus felt his eyes go wide. What in the world was the headmaster of Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardy doing at their home? Surely he’d gotten the letter stating the Lupins’ intention to educate their son at home. Maybe he was here for a different sort of thing--something to do with the Ministry, and Lyall’s work.

“Dumble...here?” Hope said, and Remus thought if she’d had more breath in her lungs she might have shrieked it. She looked around the room much as her husband had, only she seemed unable to find the same resolve. “But...Lyall, the house! It’s still a tip!”

Remus watched his father turn a half-exasperated, half-amused look on his mother, then shake his head, too astonished by her prioritization to speak.

“Oh…” she said, and put her hands to her head, teaspoon and all. “Duw, duw, duw…”

“Hope,” Lyall said, his voice light, but urgent. “Distraction, darling. You’re fantastic at them. Now would be ideal. My wards won’t hold Dumbledore for-”

A knock on the door caused them both to jump, and Remus dropped his shooter. The orb ejected a spume of sulphuric liquid and rolled, dribbling, beneath the sofa. He scrambled after it, wincing at the swift movement.

The knock came again, and Remus elbow-crawled to the sofa and peered underneath. No glint of gobstone met his gaze. Where had it gone? He sat up, surveying the chalk circles and line of stinking liquid. Dumbledore was here. His head was so scrambled by the thought of the venerable wizard in his front garden that he couldn’t decide what was more important--collecting his dropped gobstone, or cleaning up the evidence.

“Headmaster!” Lyall had apparently opened the door. “What a...er...well, unexpected…”

Hope cut him off. “You’re Albus Dumbledore! Lyall has told me all about you. So lovely to make your acquaintance. I’d invite you in for tea, of course, but I’m afraid we only just moved in last week and the place is in quite a state. Shall we talk in the garden? It’s such a lovely evening. Very...brisk.” Anxiety rendered her voice particularly Welsh.

Remus twisted about, peering past the huddle of his parents in the doorway. All he could see of the headmaster was a tall purple hat, glimmering with golden spangles and trim. The pointed tip of the hat extended far past the lintel, and Remus had to wonder whether it was Dumbledore or the hat itself that was exceptionally tall.

“Good evening,” came the amused reply. The headmaster’s voice was crisp and kind, deeper than Lyall’s, but with the same sort of mildness. “I apologize for the unheralded arrival, Lyall. It seems my last owl may have precipitated a change of address. I’d hate to frighten you into another move so soon after your last one.”

Remus’s brow furrowed. Dumbledore had sent his father an owl? Lyall seemed to be struggling for something to say.

“We didn’t--it wasn’t your letter that--we’d already planned to-”

Dumbledore chuckled. “No need to explain yourself, Lyall--you would not be the first to have fled house in anticipation of my arrival. Indeed, I once pursued a flying carpet salesman all the way to a cave in the mountains of Argentina. I only wanted to return a Chocolate Frog Card he’d dropped in the gentlemen’s lavatory, but he seemed to think I had been sent by the Ministry to unravel his import license. I have since learned not to take personally the avoidance of my company. May I come in?”

Lyall and Hope made a series of weak protestations, and Remus pushed himself upright just in time to see the man who belonged to that crisp, kind voice sail between his parents.

It turned out to be the man, not the hat, that towered. He swirled off a traveling cloak of deep amethyst and with a flick of his wand summoned a hat-stand on which to hang it. The hat stayed on, perched above a long, crooked nose and blue eyes that twinkled the moment he caught sight of Remus.

“Gobstones!” he said, bending so that his long gray beard tickled the tops of the little spheres. “It has been a long time. May I?” His smile was exceedingly kind as he bent his knees and prepared to sit on thin air. At the last moment, a chair materialized beneath him, solidifying even as he sighed contentedly. “What color do you play, Remus? The bronze or the blue?”

Remus blinked, surprised Dumbledore knew his name already. “Blue,” he answered truthfully, trying not to rasp.

Dumbledore smiled and, with a flick of his wand, the missing gobstone soared from where it had rolled behind a stack of leaning pictures and took its place in the set of circles. They commenced to play the most important game of Remus’s life. The headmaster sent his shooter stone into play with aim that suggested he was years out of practice, and chuckled merrily when a jet of blue liquid splashed across his half-moon spectacles.

It wasn’t until several rounds later that Remus got up the courage to speak. “Weren’t you here to speak with my father?” he asked.

Dumbledore’s gaze refocused, his expression shifting from delight to consideration. He set down his bronze shooter and laced long, wizened fingers together before his face. Remus returned his regard, swallowing on his raw throat.

“Do you know who I am, Remus?”

“Albus Dumbledore.”

“Correct. And do you know what I do? Where it is I work?”

Remus nodded. Dumbledore smiled and drew his hands apart again, to place them upon his knees. “I am here to speak with your father, and with your mother, and with you, about the possibility of your attending Hogwarts this fall.”

Remus heard the intake of air from both his parents, who still hovered by the door. His heart rose into his throat but he swallowed again. His parents had explained what to say when others asked about Hogwarts.

“It’s all right, headmaster,” Remus said, looking down at the blue gobstone in his hands. His father’s set, in the Ravenclaw colors, which Lyall had owned ever since his first year at Hogwarts. There was a scar along the side of his wrist, where he’d broken his arm last year and the bone had poked right through.  “I’m not well enough to go to school. I’m going to study at home.”

A pang of something like sadness, but emptier, echoed in his chest. He suddenly wished he could crawl back into the root cellar, out from under the pitying gaze of this tall Wizard.

“If that is your desire, then I completely understand. If, however, you did wish to attend Hogwarts this fall, I can assure you we have taken every precaution to ensure your and your classmates’ safety each month at the full moon.”

It was as if those last few words had cast a petrification spell. All three Lupins froze, unable to speak or breathe as they processed the information. Had Remus done something wrong? He reviewed everything he’d said to the headmaster since the man had walked in. How had he given away his abnormality so quickly? He glanced at his parents, fearing the disappointment he was certain to find lurking in their expressions.

Lyall broke the silence. “How…” he swallowed. “How long have you known? How did you…?”

Dumbledore, who had waited patiently for the family to speak, slid his hand into his voluminous purple sleeve and withdrew a letter addressed in Lyall Lupin’s scratchy handwriting. Remus watched his father reach out slowly and take the letter, staring first at it, then at Dumbledore, clearly at a loss.

“It was not your most well-reasoned essay,” Dumbledore said gently. “I far preferred your take on Voluchev’s Theory of Unmutable Elements--one of the finest N.E.W.T.s in all my years as a Transfiguration Professor.”

Lyall winced.

“Do not worry. I doubt if many others will have put together his affliction. I noticed the timing of the moves, and when they began-”

“Please,” Lyall interrupted. He cut his gaze to Remus in that way adults did when they wanted to keep something a secret.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” Hope said, appearing to have finally regained her ability to converse. “How can you be certain that Remus will be safe? I can’t stand the thought of other children being…” she trailed off, but she didn’t need to finish.

Remus’s face went hot and he looked down, rolling the gobstone shooter in his fingers so he didn’t have to look at Dumbledore. He desperately wanted to go to Hogwarts--to have friends, and adventures, to learn magic and play Quiddich and stay up all night studying for OWLs. But he was dangerous. No matter how hard he tried or how many disgusting concoctions he drank, once a month, his body wrenched itself through another transformation. He became a monster.

“I have seen to it myself,” the headmaster said. “We have set up a location outside school grounds, fortified with sufficient spellwork to hold a hundred werewolves. The staff are in unanimous agreement that no child should be denied a place at our school when it is within our power to accommodate him. I am fully confident that Remus’s condition can be managed.”

A bubble of hope rose in Remus’s chest, and he glanced at his mother, then his father, reading the apprehension on their faces. He looked at the door to the root cellar, with the deep gouges in the wood where his juvenile werewolf claws had shredded it despite Lyall’s spells.

“I’d be away from people?” he asked. “I wouldn’t hurt anyone?”

Dumbledore looked at him over those half moon spectacles, which made his long, crooked nose look even longer and more crooked. “Correct.”

Remus looked at his parents again, more desperately hopeful than he’d ever felt in his life. “We wouldn’t have to move anymore,” he said. “Dad, you wouldn’t have to be scared I’ll hurt mum when you can’t get out of work on the full moon.”

“Remus,” Hope said. “Darling, I’m not afraid that-”

“I am,” Remus said. “Dad is.”

In the silence that followed, Hope Lupin turned away. Remus watched her back as her lungs expanded once, twice. Lyall reached for her elbow, but she lifted her hand before he could take it and swiped at her eyes. She blew out a breath, which shook at the end. When she turned to them again, however, her bright brown eyes were clear.

“Considering the current atmosphere, I think it’s best the other children don’t know about his lycanthropy.” Remus was relieved when her voice sounded steady. “I understand he’s got werewolves working for him.”

Dumbledore nodded once. “I quite agree.” He turned his gaze on Remus, who swallowed the hope and anxiety tangled in his throat. “Do you believe yourself capable of keeping your condition secret? In these unsettled times, it is difficult enough for Wizarding kind to trust each other. I fear your condition may single you out for scrutiny among your classmates.”

Remus glanced down at his hands again, at the purpled bruises and the little cut on the back of his hand that, even a year later, hadn’t quite managed to fully heal. He closed his eyes, heard the memory-sound of the snarl, the pain. Disorienting flashes of fur and the bright paint of his bedroom as the monster dragged him from bed, jaws latched onto his shoulder. His father’s voice, angrier than he’d ever heard it, the flashes of spells and the return of pain. His mother screaming and screaming and…

He clenched his eyes shut tighter, and the gobstone pressed hard into his palm. Ever since that night, his whole life had been a secret. He’d looked out of the windows of so many houses, wishing he could be normal. Wishing away the curse of being a werewolf.

Dumbledore couldn’t offer him release from the curse, but if Remus could keep the secret just seven more years, he just might have a chance at being a normal wizard in every way that mattered.

He opened his eyes again and looked up, meeting Dumbledore’s gaze with more determination than he’d ever felt in his life. “I’ll keep it a secret,” he said.

The blue eyes glinted, and Remus understood that Dumbledore had expected that reaction. The headmaster smiled and turned in his conjured chair to look at Remus’s father.

“I do hope you’ll forgive me, Lyall, if I think you may be cheering for a different team at the House Cup.”

Lyall’s mouth twitched. “You should ask Remus his opinion on Voluchev’s Theory,” he said. “You may change your mind.”

Dumbldedore’s pale eyebrows lifted to the brim of his purple hat and he looked down at Remus. “Oh?” he said. “By all means, tell me your thoughts on Unmutable Elements.”

Remus blinked. “They don’t exist.”

Dumbledore laughed, tapped his nose with one finger. Remus glanced at his father, worried he’d gotten the question wrong, but Lyall was finally smiling, as if he’d gotten the better of his old professor at last.

“But, they don’t exist, do they?” Remus insisted. “Didn’t Elric Waddleburn make rules for the transfiguration of gasses? The Desublimation Theorem and-”

The headmaster cut him off with a chuckle. “You’re quite right, my boy, quite right! Now, tea, and shall we finish our game?”

“So...I’m going?” he asked, then looked at his parents. “I can go?”

Lyall looked at Hope, who shook her head in disbelief. “I never thought…”

“Neither did I,” Lyall said, but his face was breaking into a grin, tawny eyes brightening. He looked back at Dumbledore, eyebrows betraying a hint of worry. “If you’re certain.”

Remus’s gaze shot to Dumbledore, who gave a single, grave nod.

Lyall, clearly overwhelmed, looked at Remus and, with a laugh of disbelief, said, “You’d better be in Ravenclaw--it’d kill me to cheer for anyone else.”

Remus didn’t care about the pain, didn’t care that he’d been exhausted, and didn’t care that there was a gobstones game half finished in front of him--he leapt to his feet with a whoop of delight and launched himself at his parents. He hopped on the balls of his feet, alternately hugging them and demanding confirmation after confirmation. He was going to Hogwarts. He was really going to Hogwarts!

He turned to deliver the same effusive thanks to the headmaster, only to find the chair and its owner entirely gone. Remus started, then looked around, as if Dumbledore might have simply stood to peruse the pictures stacked in the corner.

“Oh, dear,” Hope said, running her hands down the front of her skirt. “That one’s a bit over the dishes, he is.”

“Yes,” Lyall agreed. “Dumbledore doesn’t do things by halves.”

But Remus had noticed something else odd about the place the headmaster had vacated. “Dad,” he said, extending a finger to point at the gobstones. Where the set had once been filled with bronze and blue liquid, they now boasted a different pair of colors: scarlet and gold.

Lyall’s eyebrow twitched, and as Remus watched, the stones shifted back to their original colors.

 “Ravenclaw,” Lyall said. “Just to prove him wrong."


End file.
